


The Nightsister on Takodana

by spaceyquill



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Carbonite, F/F, Gen, Time Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-08-31 21:09:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8593894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceyquill/pseuds/spaceyquill
Summary: Rey stumbles across something unexpected in Maz's castle.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NeurotropicAgentX](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeurotropicAgentX/gifts).



The fact alone that a familiar cry could break through the general din of music and conversation in Maz Kanata’s castle should’ve been a sign to Rey. Descending stone steps in pursuit of it and feeling the atmosphere tighten around her should’ve been another. But she had BB-8 with her and her own stubborn drive to discover where this noise came from that reminded her of her worst memories.

At the bottom of the stairs, Rey wound up in a corridor segmented by dim wall lights flanking dark doorways. The further she progressed down the corridor, the more an unseen force seemed to pull her along until she reached the last set of doorways.

The door on her left slid open revealing a room cluttered with dusty trinkets and discarded oddities. It would’ve been a treasure room to Rey if the silence didn’t weigh so heavily and everything in her mind told her she shouldn’t be here.

A quick glance around proved she was the only person there. Although the pull of gravity itself seemed to be leading Rey to a wooden chest sitting in the middle of everything, her eyes landed on a tall gray block on the near wall. A carbonite slab with a figure trapped halfway out of it. Rey heard tales about bounty hunters transporting victims in carbonite—stories from first hand experiences or fifth hand experiences flew often enough on Jakku for Rey to overhear—but she’d never actually seen one in person.

BB-8 beeped at her as she closed in on the wall ornament. Lights flickered from the side of it, monitoring vitals. If the room hadn’t been the basement, Rey would’ve avoided it completely. But the slab was discarded like the rest of the pieces here, stowed away to be forgotten.

And everyone deserved the opportunity to go home.

So Rey initiated the thawing sequence.

The carbonite melted away and the woman inside slammed to the ground, sending BB-8 shooting back into the corridor with a shriek. She took so long to respond that Rey feared she might be dead. Luckily, with a little poking once Rey rolled her onto her back, she began to stir.

The stranger’s pale skin accentuated her dark facial tattoos, while her short, light hair clung damply to her head. Her clothes—practical and eclectic—bespoke a life far more interesting than Rey had ever known.

“Can you hear me?” Rey asked. “Are you alright?” She took the woman’s hand when she reached out, as sluggish as someone just waking from a deep sleep. BB-8 tipped his head back into the room to watch from the safety of the corridor.

“Ugh, where _am_ I?” groaned the woman.

“Takodana, at Maz Kanata’s.”

“Is that supposed to mean anything to me?” She let Rey pull her into a sitting position and blinked. “I can’t see anything!”

“Are you blind?”

The woman inclined her head in the direction of Rey’s voice. “ _Apparently_.”

“No, I mean, were you blind before you were frozen?”

“No—” She paused, and her stiff shoulders slanted with a tired sigh. “Right. Carbonite. Memory’s just as useless as my eyes.” She pushed herself to her feet anyway, swaying enough to make Rey hold her arms out just in case, but she didn’t fall. Her hands slid across her belt before she spat, “They took my lightsaber!”

Immediately, Rey began checking the room. Back on Jakku, Rey had never been generous to strangers because that just helped someone other than herself get ahead. But here, where someone was more lost than herself, Rey could take all the undue generosity she’d received since meeting all the people who brought her to Maz and pay it forward.

She inspected the racks of shelves, inside standing pottery and the piles of miscellaneous scrap, saying, “What’s your name, by the way? I’m Rey.”

“Asajj Ventress.”

Rey’s search brought her back to the wooden chest that seemed to hum with a pulse she could feel. Lifting its lid, she uncovered a sleek hilt resting inside. “Oh! I think I found your—”

The moment she touched it, however, a flurry of images flashed through her mind of dark places and unfamiliar people, of herself as a child being left behind, all so real she felt she was back there again, watching herself be abandoned.

A hand on her shoulder ripped her out of the flashback. Asajj stood behind her, having found her by hearing alone. BB-8 whistled from Rey’s feet, bumping into her leg.

“You okay?” Asajj asked. Her expression was more of suspicion than of concern.

“H-here,” stammered Rey, wanting nothing more than to be rid of the thing. “Here’s your lightsaber.”

Asajj frowned when Rey pushed it into her open hand. “This doesn’t feel like one of mine. Wait…” Her other hand still on Rey’s shoulder, she ignited the lightsaber blade with an unnecessary twirl and BB-8 shot back into the corridor. “What color is it?”

“Blue.”

“ _Definitely_ not mine,” she snorted. The humming blade receded with the strangest noise Rey had ever heard and Asajj presented the hilt back to her.

“Well, it’s not mine, either!”

Asajj rolled her eyes pretty well for someone who was blind before hooking the lightsaber on her belt. “Fine. I’ll keep it. Point me in the direction of something.”

BB-8 trailing the entire way, Rey took Asajj’s arm around her shoulders and guided her upstairs into the main room of the cantina. She didn’t want to plop Asajj down at the table with Maz and introduce her as the woman she unfroze without permission, but she also had both no idea what to do with her and no experience with how to help.

“Why _were_ you frozen, anyway?” Rey asked. That probably should’ve been her first question, but now that they were halfway across the cantina floor it was as good a time as any.

“I had enemies,” Asajj mumbled.

“Maz?” The incredulity soared as Rey caught sight of the little yellow creature still sitting with Han, a sweet face among the crowd.

“Seriously, _who_ is Maz?” growled Asajj.

“Hello!” Maz called, hand waving, even though Rey was still tables away from her. She enhanced the magnification on her goggles as Rey led Asajj into Finn’s old chair and pushed a plate of fruit in front of her.

It was a lot of trouble for a stranger, but there was something about Asajj that endeared her to Rey, and Rey didn’t mind helping guide her hand to the food so Asajj knew it was there. Rey sank back into her own seat in the expectant silence that hung between Maz and Han.

“I found her downstairs,” Rey spoke up, looking from Han to Maz and then directly away from Maz again, remembering Han’s warning. With magnification, Maz’s eyes were about the size of Rey’s fists.

“Nice lightsaber,” Han said, the easygoing disposition Rey had seen in him since entering the cantina completely gone. “Yours?”

Asajj’s face twisted into a scowl around her food. “I’m wearing it, aren't I?”

“Where’d you get it?” he asked.

“I found it!” Rey interjected. “Downstairs, in the same room as Asajj.”

Maz refocused her goggles back to her normal size, her expression just as pleasant as ever for someone who kept carbonite trophies like some kind of crime boss hoarding debtors.

“The carbonite woman!” Maz said, smiling at the successful recognition. “I was wondering what her story was.”

“Carbonite?” Han asked with a glower.

“Yes, the pirate Ohnaka wanted me to hold onto her for him. How many years ago was that now?” She tapped her chin in introspection.

“Ohnaka?” growled Asajj. “That scaly, two-faced—”

Rey put a hand on Asajj’s arm only for her to flinch from Rey’s touch, eyes wide but useless.

“Your hibernation sickness’ll wear off soon,” Han said. Asajj looked more annoyed with his words than anything else.

A vibration shot through the floor then, silencing all chatter in time to hear an ominous booming in the distance. The patrons hastily glanced around from the floors to the ceilings, watching the hanging flags shudder. A second later something hit the castle itself with a violent lurch, tipping Rey’s chair over completely.

Shouts of _the First Order_ came from patrons near the doorway, and Rey popped to her feet, the only worry in her mind lingering on the safety of her first friend who walked away. She managed to stagger outside amid a rush of terrified aliens only to stop at the sight of countless black ships in the air, swarming in formation. BB-8 whistling next to Rey pulled her back.

“They’re here for you! You have to hide!” she warned the little droid. He immediately rolled behind her leg before braving another peek at the sky. “No! The forest! Go!”

With a sad little beep, BB-8 complied, rolling down the steps and towards the entry gate, darting between other sentients fleeing the cantina for their lives.

“Hey!” a voice shouted behind her. “What’s going on?” Asajj stumbled against the doorway, face tilted as her hearing overcompensated for her lack of sight.

“The First Order is firing on us, I have to find my friend!” And without even asking how Asajj followed her, Rey took off down the main path, following the crowd to the landing zone—also where most of the explosions originated, as enemy forces bombarded any craft that wasn’t theirs.

Stormtroopers seemed to crawl out of the very rubble they created, bright white against the smoke and fire. They closed in on the castle while passing TIEs made craters of towers.

The chaos around her seemed to slow and speed up at the same time. Rey couldn’t hear her own voice calling for Finn, and yet somewhere from the forest she clearly heard BB-8’s shrill squeal. She spun immediately, only to find a dark masked figure standing there radiating an anger that twisted her stomach.

She whipped the blaster pistol out of her belt and fired—the trigger sensitivity actually shot two bolts, but with a swing of red, her shots were deflected and the strangers stood there, a red lightsaber crackling in his hand. With a wave of his hand, her blaster arm was yanked back by some invisible force, clamped behind her in thin air.

“So,” he said in a voice far from human. “You’re the girl I’ve heard so much about.”

He stalked forward, and as he pointed the lightsaber at Rey, a slice of blue came down between them, forcing his blade into the ground.

Asajj stood there, even paler in natural light, and Rey had never been happier to see someone look so suspicious.

The masked man looked from her to her weapon. “That lightsaber—belongs to me!”

“Yeah? Get in line.” Shoving her hand in his face, the man went flying back with a force altogether impossible for a woman like her. But luckily Asajj broke his hold on Rey’s arm and she stumbled in her newfound freedom.

“Can… can you see?” Rey asked, reaching out for her shoulder. Asajj didn’t flinch this time, but her eyes still remained unfocused and distant.

“Explain later; run now,” Asajj said, holding out a hand.

Rey, for as little as she would voluntarily touch anyone, only wanted to squeeze Asajj in a strong hug. She settled for grabbing her hand. “Come on, we have to find my friend!”


End file.
